CHAPTER 1
A PATH TO FLOETRY
The poor words of the letter F, so many lost to that most well known F word. Before all other words in the letter F family that one F word rules, slides into the most innocent of thoughts, is shortened to respectability, strongly spoken, appears loudly when cried in anger. It has strength no other F word commands; even has it own hand sign, the mystical middle finger, with its sliding scale of intensity.
Sadly, so many other good F words do not have the power of this one universal F word, as if all other F words have been caught in a minor key of obscurity.
It was the rules that got the other F words civilized, while that one F word became the forbidden, the most unsociable of powers, a curse, a question, a bold statement when only one word would do and there was no other.
Songs covertly sing the F words praise, while other F words, perhaps just as powerful, fade in its wake. You must think such a social renegade could be topped, unseated from its throne. Yet when cornered, attacked, it just enters a metamorphosis into other forms, adding more letters or words like What The F, WTF, or a mash up of letters and symbols. That F word is so elastic that social media scream with joy at its new attire until all the other F words shudder in the shock of being again undone.
We all know how it happened that the F word grew from mating and copulating. In its most dramatic move it co-opted the very spelling of the letter F, so that now `eff' itself has become the owner of just that one F word.
In the life of a language it is the creation of new words that give a language its vitality. While there are many people who proclaim that this is not a language's lifeblood, they are mistaken. For it is not rules of a language that govern its use, but how a language is used and accepted by those who speak it that allows its power to communicate.
Even the Scrabble dictionary has bent to new words, new uses of language. Those who claim that not just anyone can make up new words are missing the context of language. Language comes from use. If enough people decide a word has a use or describes a thing, an idea, an invention or a concept, that word will survive.
Latin and other ancient languages did not die out because of misuse. They faltered when they could no longer explain the world emerging about them. Yet they laid a language foundation as their legacy.
Other F Words is the beginning of a redemption of the family of F words. New words, a new meaning, until the F word `family' emerges from the fens and is acclaimed for its fervent goal to explain what is to come.
Time changes all and the written word is no exception to that rule. `Experiments in Floetry' introduces a new F word to the family. Allow me to introduce Floetry.
Floetry bends the linguistic norm, displaces the forms of grammar to a swirling line of rhyme, invents, retools, reuses, takes the future upon its soul and keeps the language vibrantly explaining what is to come of the myths of tomorrow. In this book it presents some of the other letters of F words in the favorable light they deserve.
The F word that conquered never truly conquered all other F words. The fraternity of F words went freaking at their fate as they became a virtual stillness of silence in fear of revealing their lettered relationship to the F word. Starved into myth, shattered into nothing, the family of F words rises now through Floetry.
It is not a contradiction of rules and creativity one should fear. No, indeed, if one were to believe you cannot add words to the English language, one would still be speaking in short bursts of grunts and moans of distaste and delight. While many still communicate this way there remains the unanswered question.
We may never know who first spoke the famous or infamous F word, but imagine their surprise at the response they got. That first speaker who first saw how one word could gain power over and beyond its four letters? Does it truly matter when so many new words grow and gather; we forget that in the English language renewal is its strength?
The criers of yesterday's language cringe on the forge of tomorrow's language, today. Yet what do they fear, a tradition shaken, their roots stirred?
So well worn workers of words, wise to the ways of the negativity of many change resistant humans, feel free in Floetry to invent words, create word forms that are unknown, change spellings, ignore grammar, use words considered improper to some, whenever you feel they have need of reinvention into the FLO of language reno-lution.
Perhaps chaos may be the response, but then who cried foul when corporations became humans, or Wall Street turned theft into bailouts with the redirection of words meanings. Changing the meanings of words did it all. It happens all around you, everyday.
Consider Floetry as a box. Within the box you are confined to internal boundaries. Outside the box you are confined to external boundaries. Now take a knife and lay the box flat till it floats on the air. You have expanded the box. Carve that flattened box into slices that float alone, and you have created a potential magic carpet of shapes that can take you anywhere you can imagine. Slide down mountains, construct a castle, and free yourself to express, what ever, good or not, of what comes close to your heart. Expose the world for the mockery it hides behind in form and tradition while allowing the rape of all life by greed and gods.
That is Floetry's power; a song, a thought, a story, a memory, taking what was known and experienced into what can be envisioned as FLO. This is a beginning, not an end. Yes, I am saying you can change the rules, break the barriers, and enter a new language dimension.
If you do not, will progress cease, will regeneration not continue, will the earth stop spinning, will you be thrown from Gaia into outer space?
The great secret of life is that those who hold treasure close would rather you not change their economic and language dominance no matter what the costs, for them change is too difficult to consider. Their ways are rooted in corruptly sucking the joy of life from millions. Their messages, their business practices, their governments, their religions are all in need of a reno-lution.
Yet they will fight tooth and nail to restrict sharing, construct virtual prisons to capture your mind and train you to believe all is fine and you are not deserving of their time. They do this all with words bent into meaningless symbols: work will make you free.
Within this book lies a vision for you to contemplate. You will find smiles and questions, things one should shout out, old and new, love, death and peace. Floetry after all is within ourselves, so why then not let what is in each of us FLO.
All Floetry offerings found here are titled with a word beginning with the letter F. This is an attempt to overcome the F word deficit and give the family of F words new meaning and appreciation, new thoughts.
After all I too have abused the F family of words. I seek redress for the family of F words, for stealing the spelling of `eff' to represent only one F word and to celebrate other F words we may have all forgotten.
The Floetry in this book are my glimpses into life and reality perceived sometimes in love, other times in sorrow, but always in amazement. Floetry tries to answer questions such as why so many people are denied a living wage or even the simplest celebrations of life, while so very few gather wealth and then use it to mount oppression's throne by misusing words to cloak their evil intentions, trapping the listener in meaningless stereotypes of fearful thinking.
Wars waged as economic drivers, chaos appearing everywhere, while inflation rips the soul of the working class to death while they blindly wonder WTF?
Oh come the FLO reno-lution!
What a world of Floetry to be alive in. There are many problems to solve in life that need Floetry to understand their roots and seek workable solutions. The attack of word-confusionist-butchers may holds sway as the media repeats over and over that a particular word means something new, and not what it once did.
To humanity's credit, no matter what we all face in life, we humans have found ways to endure, to change, to become more creative in the understanding that if we do not change, we will perish and enter a place we would not ever wish to be. Think of a world where children cannot read, where reading a book is visual violence, where words are weapons only. This is where those without FLO would lead us if we allow them to make us fearful.
The English language, owes its dominance in the world to the ability to expand elastically to describe new ideas, make understandable new thoughts and new technologies. The English language is a model of survival that has not yet embraced a totally negative profile.
Floetry embraces a "you can" instead of a `you can't do that' attitude. Trying to make a better place for generations yet to come. Within FLO we can direct energies to create a more embracing outcome.
Floetry, is a natural process, its roots in the earth, stirring new growth allowing great freedom and creativity freed from the sealed boxes of negativity.
Unleashing new words into the world is no more dangerous than tweeting. Floetry accepts that change will happen and a word's meaning may change. Use a new word enough and an additional definition may into dictionaries creep.
Language belongs to everyone. Creativity belongs to everyone. Let it FLO!
FRIENDSHIP
I remember the day we became friends
you came crawling from under a rusting old Desoto so bold so cold
One of a litter born six weeks ago
you could barely make a sound
too young to take from your mother
the alternative to let you drown
with no friends around.
Wrapped in my jackets warmth, next to my heart
on my ten-speed we flew
up, down, around Santa Cruz
At work you slept in a box behind the counter
at first I gave you a bottle until you craved solid foods
never wandering far
we travelled to Avalon House sun porch
the two of us no longer alone
we pooled our strength
we wandered the San Lorenzo
surfed the Pacific's might
ran in the Redwood's light
playing can you find me?
answering the family whistle
Never apart, lovers of life
joy brightens friendship
when money is tight friendship is better to have than not
occasionally we spent the night above the stereo shop
inexpensive security
a blanket for cover
listening to the Dead, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin
roar into morning
the Concert Grand's shaking the windowpanes
turn the Marantz up to ten,
so we can really hear it in our den
finally sleep took us.
One night a thief jimmied the window
broke in
you growled a warning
and attacked
I grabbed his leg and ended up holding a sneaker
the thief limped off
never to return.
Midnight the store closed
when the streets were empty we rode
you within my coat growing
me peddling with the wind
one night you ran beside me
dappled panther black and brown
no white except your fangs,
running
we became the night's knights
undoing what was not right
among those others the night called along to join our song.
You were not impressed when I found her
you would break between our hands as we walked Natural Bridges
back in the middle
till you accepted her to our pack
her place beside me if she kept the pace
little you knew nor I of women then.
On the shores of Monterey Bay you finally accepted her
as we barked at Walruses resting on the Coast Guard Pier
explored empty canneries watching out doors long gone
hearing the salt water bay singing its song
Otters playing with abalone in beds of kelp
A record store was our business now nine A.M. to midnight
you stayed by our side
I went to the burger bar to get our lunch
three bold thieves saw only a woman, a dog
who stayed behind for the very first time
she threatened to call the cops
too bad the phone was just an empty prop
they swaggered from the back
jackets bulging with records
hoping to score they misjudged thee
you don't scare that easily
then they heard your growl
and saw in your black eyes
that they were about to die
your fangs snapped hungry for their flesh
you herded them back never letting them pass
till they begged her to hold you back
let us go they begged
returned the records and begged some more
with our lunch in a paper sack I came back
to see three robbers running for their lives
you stood by her she was now true pack
The three of us rode Highway One in our '58 ford Panel Truck
then east from California's wild beach to Jersey's old Atlantic shore
where you were an overlord much feared and adored,
the east was no place for our pack
Connecticut where every grain of sand is owned and accounted for
no beach
no trespass
no access
no shoes
no shirts
no service
no dogs
no hippies
no Vietnam
no home no more
to Canada we came
crossing at Niagara Falls
riding the rainbow bridge
peace settled upon us all
In T town the city lights became too bright
the country stars called us west to the young coast
nothing had even aged one hundred years
where fools upon sandy shores
did not build more and more
so that rogue waves did not destroy their lives,
fir
larch
cedar
spruce
hemlock
balsam
redwoods they're not but still giants to live under
300 years
of real life
walking
Pemberton
Mount Currie
Lillooet
Lytton
fishing
Golden to Tofino
Babine to Sooke
drove onto Long Beach
tempting the Pacific's storm surge,
up valleys where no body lived
hiking in forests
climbed mountain peaks
huddling close wet in the rain in our tipi
swollen rivers
creeks roaring
fish for dinner
our secret whistle
safety
love
family
so we could give friendship freely
to those who gave it back
Into Van and Vic we stumbled
Fourth Street in the moment of a rebirth fantasy
strong our pack became
no others could make us unfree.
Back to terminal city
we lived for a while in Don and Kate's back yard
where we would sing,
swing with Saul's Afghani hash,
listen to Joni's sad lament of paved paradise
always with us
cleverly at our side
where no dog was allowed
No drunks prowled our life
you would growl them to a halt,
herd them against the wall in fear
their hidden demons come to life,
not here where the pack resides
under God's Eyes,
in the soy drums we built
could no evil dwell
even if the city knew no peace.
We were all young
roads still called us
back to Santa Cruz,
we grew from three to four
a natural birth
a new brother
learning the way of the pack.
Treading the garden on mulched chocolate bean husks,
home covered in Passion Flowers
a new den upon the River San Lorenz.
the chess master
the ice cream vendor
the California beauty
the broccoli packer.
We played as a pack,
we grew strong
we found UCSC before it even opened,
we wandered its forest groves
we were all still young,
the world could not unravel our fun
we lived within a Redwood tree
so free
we travelled afoot
we feasted on the bounty
Brussels sprouts,
artichokes
wild mushrooms
brown rice
water
mountain wine (15th pressing).
swam the ocean
of a dead whale washed ashore
to mask your scent you rolled about.
We were about change,
while change we did not see
like rogue waves upon the sea
The earth shook occasionally.
We spent time at the birth center,
trying to break the curse
birth was not a disease
Breast-feeding is a healthy choice
birthing mothers have a voice
Our new pack brother
born strong as winter's winds
found himself at the center of protest
against those who saw
Breast-feeding as a sin
better hidden than seen
We march down Pacific Street
one hundred breast feeding goddess's
with supporters to the sea,
life force should not hidden
by minds living in fear
You had friends there,
Clancy,
Warthog,
Blue
Sparky,
Adventurous humans too,
Third Street warriors
true
Ben Lomond lovers
blotter dreamers
beach walkers
all believers
rolled into Big Sur
into forbidden wilderness
which brought the wrath of the one percent's
enforcers of their imaginary laws,
to befuddle a pack
free on the ocean shores
the crime of the highest majesty
trespass
The courts access
justice's best
someone must pay
jail the dog!
pay or die!
Afore sunrise
we break you free
bolt cutter magic
from the pound's compound
for who knows what for
death should not be
your price for loyalty
mine to you
you to me
into family fold
until California seems to have grown old
From so few
the change grew
back to BC the pack flew
into the frontier we never knew
horses
chickens
ducks
goats
gardens to last through winter's year
became our test
We ran for our water
left our panel truck at rest
a convenient shed
electricity we did without,
the sun our clock,
now we gathered seeds
hunted whitetails
breaking trails in the snow
fire wood stacked to dry
come winters cold
warmth to survive.
there we rested the pack warm in our winter's den.
The pack grew to four that winter,
a spring son
born into the warm sun
our seasonal labours
set a healthy table,
till winter once again
made us be forest people.
building
from logs
on land
where we
could not
be
Rebirth
the panel truck springs to life
from savings gained splitting shakes
logs skidded by Fife
our workhorse strong
Our sixth pack member
another soul for you to guide
so that no danger pack would see.
Again
the trek across country, wilderness to suburbia
you a guide at being alive,
family time
work to find
earn that paper tool
we could trade for land.
Set us in the city of Newark
ethnic vibes uncertain
Independence Hall
twelve little girls
grown old
each with child within
knowing the world
wild with opportunity
was not to be
destroyed
by racists
smothered
in shame
in a place that gathered Oak leaves
to burn upon some altar of blame
here the pack stood strong
You gained fame
in the hood
you walked at our side
the fearful jumped up on parked cars
pleading not to turn you loose
when no leash your neck ever held.
Could they not see
that you were free
enlightened
more than they could be
Pack grew strong here
new souls in its care
within Independence Hall
fear disappeared
change we brought
Yet staying here was not our thought.
Winter's call, sent you roaming
this city of old hard stones
chiseled beyond changing
what has been dead so long
till we found you gone
searching the stone wilderness
for a sign
There hidden you crouched between the net man and the noose
under the only wild bush
big enough to hide
on a concrete street
a cement sidewalk
trapped in a rubble lot
where the ten foot pole
could not reach
Gathered
the crowd
to witness the wild and the man collide
to remove your life you're light
we came in search
where the roads teed
left University
right Broad Street
from the west,
pack,
family
born within Redwood's strong
tempered in the Monashees,
nurtured upon the Pacific surge,
the time to snap the eastern cord
call of old falls
whistle
the pack call
run brother
family
no harm here
bolting like lightning from the sky
exploded from under that bush
net man stumbled and fell
noose man dropped and ran
your wild surge more than they could understand
into the pick up truck you flew.
engaged the clutch
indicated my signal light
to freedom turned right
the crowd cheered
a victory they knew had happened
though they may not have understood,
as we came to understand Newark could not be.
North we trekked
upon the Great Lake's shores,
where the difference of a line on a map,
was a beginning of welcome home.
Portage
we sat upon a rock and dreamed it all
a pack of five
each had captured the other's heart
Work hard we did again
Hog town upon Lac de Frontenac
Lets all be CNE
Rochdale insanity
another city we strive to flee
then you were lost again
one moment running wild in a park,
the next gone, into the dark.
We searched
we shouted,
we placed posters on all the poles
till one day a woman called
I have your dog
he ran into my car my dog in heat
he enthralled.
He would not leave
I took him home, fed him roast beef
so my bitch he could mate
within a penthouse
guarded by a doorman discreet
who saw us as people of the street.
I understood when we met again how you looked at that bowl of beef
the bitch now out of heat
I could enjoy this I felt you say
I wondered could you live long in steel and concrete
Grown tired of nowhere to play
It mattered to you not
the penthouse rot
we were pack once again.
Good T.O. wage slaves
money we made
entrepreneurial sway
off again now in a Jeep
the leash of the east released
the west's wondrous song recalled
mountains and streams, forests as far as you can see
air you can breath
water from creeks to drink
safe
our growing pack roots could set.
Not old just comfortable
to speak to one another
not always in words
comfort gained
free to roam
where nothing owned us
save the pack
this our holy pact.
In the warmth of the den
we made sure
strong would grow the young at our side
no enemy could stride
that together
we could not stand against.
You, the blackness of night
whose fangs offered a warning
leave or fight.
We stood by each other
as friends do
built a house of wonder
in which something of each of us lived
standing always as one
till my old was longer than yours
I saw you all the time
play upon the earth so fine
Then
gone
you
away
no one knew what good you did
save a few
this pack of yours.
